White-Tailed Tropicbird – Phaethon lepturus

• Tail Streamers are white and can be up to seventeen inches long.
• Forages by plunging into water from flight, submerging briefly; sometimes by swooping down to surface without striking water, taking flying fish in the air.
• May feed most actively in early morning and late afternoon.
• Courtship displays include two birds flying gracefully in unison, one above the other, with higher bird bending tail down to touch tail of lower bird.

Etymology
Phaethon – Greek mythology- son of Helios; killed when trying to drive his father’s chariot and came too close to earth
epturus: Greek leptós = ‘slender, thin’, and +ourá = ‘tail’

Songs and Calls:

A piping “keck-keck-keck”